


retirement

by dilangley



Category: Mighty Ducks (Movies)
Genre: Accurate references to real players and stats, Character Study, Chicago Blackhawks, Detroit Red Wings, M/M, NHL angst, Retirement, These were the NHL teams I gave these boys to
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-14
Updated: 2020-08-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:22:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25888792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dilangley/pseuds/dilangley
Summary: You can't play in the NHL forever. Adam and Charlie learn how to leave behind professional hockey and start anew.
Relationships: Adam Banks/Charlie Conway
Comments: 8
Kudos: 49





	retirement

Adam Banks retires a Blackhawk after the 2011-12 season. His right knee has nothing left. It’s endured three surgeries, endless rounds of cryotherapy, and routine uplifting from a ladies’ prayer circle at Old St. Patrick’s Church. 

The Hawks win the Stanley Cup the next year. 

Kane calls him to talk after. A couple days after. Not right away. Right away, he was probably thinking about a million things besides the forward who just missed the big year, the retiree who still limps from his most recent PT session, the name no longer on any roster. But he calls eventually.

“We miss you, bud,” Kane says into the phone. Adam believes him.

“Miss you too. Live it up for me.”

“Sure thing.”

Charlie Conway calls the day the Hawks win. He calls the next day. He calls every day for a week.

Then he shows up at the apartment door. 

“Hey buddy.” His smile spreads slow and wide. “I packed for a few.”

He stays for a month.

  
  


* * *

  
  


By their junior year, most of the Ducks boarded at Eden Hall. That admission of defeat -- the quiet acceptance of how hard it was to leave a small, messy, poor house to go to school where no one realized that was different from walking out of a suburban McMansion -- won out for those of them determined to stick it out.

One day after study hall, Charlie winked at Adam.

“I’ll be out tonight, so the room’s all yours.” 

“What?”

“The room’s all yours,” Charlie repeated. “I’m not stupid, Banks. I know you’re not coming in after midnight breathing hard because you’re sneaking extra rink time.”

Adam had taken him up on it. The boy he was seeing had floppy, mom-can’t-make-me-get-a-haircut boarding school hair and warm brown eyes. Wesley never lost his temper when he sucked in a round of Madden, and he still didn’t understand icing in hockey. 

The two boys had been pawing at each other for weeks and were on the verge of doing more than that when Charlie came home early that night.

“Shit, I’m sorry!” Charlie hurried out, slammed the door behind him. 

When he came back two hours later, Adam was by himself at his desk. His English textbook was spread open, but he wasn’t holding a pen. He had been worrying himself sick. It was one thing for Charlie to know he was gay; it was another for him to see it in action.

“Did you have fun?” 

Adam hesitated. “Yeah. I guess.”

“Get laid?” There was a low, sharp edge in the question Adam didn’t recognize.

“No.” 

“Too bad,” Charlie said, his voice suggesting it was anything but.

A week later, Charlie kissed Adam for the first time. He just swept across the room and kissed him silly right there in the morning before they had even brushed their teeth. 

  
  


* * *

  
  


Charlie Conway retires a Detroit Red Wing after the 2018-19 season. 

He almost retired before that when 37 seemed so fucking old every morning getting out of bed. Then the Washington Capitals won their first ever Stanley Cup. He watched Ovi and Nicky skate Lord Stanley to Brooks Orpik. He hadn’t been a lifelong Cap like them, wasn’t a franchise player.

But he had been the third to hoist the Cup. In all the weeks that followed, Charlie listened to the interviews and kept hearing how “Batya” was the leader they needed. They credited their cup to this aging defenseman who just played his game night in and night out.

Charlie would have been lying if he had said he hadn’t had visions of bringing the same thing to another team. The Red Wings gave him the chance, and he spent his worst season ever playing for the worst team to touch the ice that year. 

Retirement is an embarrassing relief. None of his teammates even have platitudes to suggest otherwise.

He makes the announcement. They post a gif on Twitter. He doesn’t even have enough highlights in a Wings jersey for them to make a video. He’s too much of a journeyman for any team to make a video.

People call and text and Tweet and congratulate him as if retirement is what he wants. They make friendly cracks about his golf game. They do not see how cutting the light out on hockey means he finds himself standing in a dark room. He can’t even see the door.

Adam doesn’t get in touch. He just shows up at Charlie’s downtown apartment with a suitcase and a stack of moving boxes.

“Your lease is up any day now. Ready to pack?”

“Nope.” Charlie has a lump in his throat all of a sudden.

“I figured. That’s why I came to you.”

They get it done in record time.

  
  


* * *

Charlie and Adam both went the NCAA-route to the NHL. Eden Hall College Preparatory Academy did not have scouts knocking down the doors. But both boys ground it out at separate colleges. They played their games with their heads up and played their classes the same way. 

The semesters flew by. The summers flew faster.

Adam Banks, B.A. in English Literature, Language, and Culture from North Dakota

Charlie Conway, B.S. in Economics from Boston College

They kept their relationship secret. The world might be more understanding than ever about homosexuality, but hockey… was not. Bisexuality? Charlie might as well spray paint “Freak” on his own locker.

If they hugged a little too long the day of the NHL draft, no one noticed. It was an emotional day. It always is.

  
  


* * *

  
  


The off-season always starts at Adam’s house in Grand Forks. Charlie drives up in a rental car, throws his duffel on the chair in the master bedroom and raids the fridge. They play darts in the living room and kiss between rounds. When they finally go to bed for the night, they do not mention hockey or salaries or contracts. Adam shares the latest book he’s read; Charlie talks about the obscure places he has pinned on Google Maps for them to visit.

They stay up all night making love and conversation. 

But not this time. This time, Adam drives up his own driveway, sedately parks the car in the garage, and helps Charlie carry in the boxes. It only takes them one trip. They pile the boxes just inside the door.

This time, there is no food ready to go in the fridge. Adam offers to cook, but they order delivery instead. A friendly teenager delivers Pita Pit in 20 minutes or less. 

Charlie cannot taste the food. The whole time he eats it, he just keeps thinking, “What now?”

Finally, he says it out loud.

“I don’t know. It’s the rest of your life. We don’t have to figure it out tonight.”

They don’t. Charlie cuts on _Call of Duty_ and plays for hours. Adam makes noise about going to bed and finally does it. Charlie doesn’t join him. 

He just pushes buttons over and over. He falls asleep in the middle of an online multiplayer match, but when he wakes up, he just cuts the TV off and stays on the couch.

  
  


* * *

  
  


All he ever wanted was to play hockey. Charlie remembers dipping out of classes as a freshman and talking big plans with Fulton about sneaking to Canada to play juniors. 

“I don’t know that I want to play hockey for the rest of my life,” Reed had said. 

Charlie couldn’t relate then. Now he could, of course. No one makes it to nearly 40 in the NHL without thinking about retirement. Maybe he was even ready -- kind of, in a way -- but not like this. 

He wanted to accomplish something first. He didn’t want to go out of the NHL as quietly as if he were never there. There were no kids out there with Conway jerseys. His name was not on the Stanley Cup. He had never started a charity push of his own, just kept his head down and joined in generic team efforts. 

Now here he is. If he introduces himself to someone, he will have to say, “Actually, I played in the NHL,” like some douchebag and then when the person says, “Oh yeah?”, it will break some small fragile place inside of him.

Adam didn’t feel this way when he retired. Charlie knows that. He _knows_ it. Adam has always been comfortable in his own skin in a way Charlie cannot relate to, cannot understand. 

Still waters run deep. Charlie’s more of a white water rafting course. Turbulent and, he fears, shallow.

  
  


* * *

  
  
  


Adam doesn’t know how to start all this. He has been waiting for this for a long time. He knows everything takes a backseat to hockey for Charlie. It always has. He understands that about Conway better than he understands anything about himself.

Charlie had hockey when he had nothing else. It gave him his ticket. He just never really figured out where it was he wanted to go.

Adam has been coaching with his alma mater since retiring from the league. It’s not forever. He doesn’t see himself as a career hockey coach. He has just been biding time waiting for right now.

He looks over at his couch where Charlie is snoring and drooling on a pillow, his third night in a row of sleeping out here.

Right now doesn’t seem worth much wait. 

  
  


* * *

  
  


After a week, Charlie finds his shit.

He’s showering, halfway through his lather, and he realizes he lives with Adam now. There’s no apartment back home. There’s no team practice rink he needs to get back to, just to keep sharp.

This is the rest of his life _with Adam_.

He has been living this secret relationship his whole life, more than twenty years. He knows every inch of Adam, everything he loves and wants, all his annoying habits, but they’ve never had a life together. They have always been a secret. Charlie’s mom doesn’t know. Adam’s parents don’t know. 

But now hockey is over. 

Charlie doesn’t even notice he forgot to rinse the conditioner out of his hair. He explodes out of the bathroom, water still dripping down his body, towel slung around his hips, and grabs Adam by the shirt front.

“This is it, Banksy. You’re stuck with me now.” 

Adam nearly climbs down his throat. 

“‘ ‘bout time,” he murmurs into Charlie’s mouth.

They have belated reunion-retirement sex, and it is worth any wait.

**Author's Note:**

> Why God why am I writing Mighty Ducks fanfiction in August of 2020? Is this weird angst from August playoffs? I just don't know.


End file.
